The Gnar Company

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CEO of Sparkle Stories

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We produce original audio stories for children and families.  

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire The Gnar Company to accomplish?

• Maintain our current website, while improving small aspects of our systems
• Design and build a new marketing website

SOLUTION

How did you find The Gnar Company?

• Online Search
• Referral

Why did you select The Gnar Company over others?

• High ratings
• Great culture fit
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from The Gnar Company were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Sparkle Stories produce original audio stories for children, enjoyed by families around the world. Their streaming library contains over 1,300 original audio stories for children ages 3 to 12. We were seeking a new technology partner to maintain our web and mobile apps so Gnar conducted a free code audit of their software and discovered that the Rails and Ruby versions, as well as many of the dependencies for the backend API application that powers their web and mobile apps were out of date and causing performance issues. Gnar made all of these updates, as well as fixing some known issues. Gnar is continuing to maintain all of the Sparkle Stories applications as well as assisting with some new UX/UI designs for the website which will be implemented in 2025.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Updates to web and mobile apps
• Updates to the dependencies for the backend API application 
• Maintenance of all of the Sparkle Stories applications
• New UX/UI designs and dev for the website which will be implemented in 2025.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

The team at the Gnar is warm, receptive and responsive.  The followed the timeline, and communicated clearly when more time or input was needed.  They responded thoughtfully and quickly to feedback or requests from the Sparkle team.  

What was your primary form of communication with The Gnar Company?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

We like that they are a small, nimble company like we are, and that they are invested in our success. We feel The Gnar Company's commitment to our technology and the overall work that we do.

Are there any areas for improvement or something The Gnar Company could have done differently?

The development side has been fantastic.  If there have been challenges, it has been on the design side, in part because our project was caught in a change in Gnar staffing.  Next time we would want to get very clear who is doing the design work, and also we would discuss practicality, feasibilty and budget more throughly before we move into the design phase. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CEO of Trusted Advisor Associates LLC

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Teach people to build deeper trust in their professional relationships.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire The Gnar Company to accomplish?

• Upgrade an online self-assessment tool

SOLUTION

How did you find The Gnar Company?

Clutch Site

Why did you select The Gnar Company over others?

• Great culture fit
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from The Gnar Company were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Upgrade and enhance an outdated version of a custom application. Phase one upgraded the technology to the latest software versions. Phase two added functionality and application security and transitioned application and database to a more robust platform.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Improved system functionality and increased reporting.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Gnar were incredibly easy to work with and stayed in constant communication. I felt comfortable with both the plan and the progress we were making on most elements of the work. They created a Slack channel for near-real-time communication, in addition to weekly progress updates and, during the enhancement phase, weekly meetings to review and prioritize requirements, which was particularly helpful when we were unable to complete testing or provide inputs timely. 

They immediately flagged any potential changes to scope and provided options and quotes for new work. When we had out-of-scope requests (e.g., updating security on the production system), they engaged the appropriate resources and managed the work without seriously impacting schedule.

What was your primary form of communication with The Gnar Company?

Virtual Meeting

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The people! From the first conversation, Pete and Mike were open and curious about our project and, more importantly, about our company and how this project helped us help our clients. We had a dedicated developer, which provided continuity and allowed us to work better together as we got to know each other. 

When we needed to change staff (for their reasons or ours), they were transparent about how to do so, and why, and made sure new staff were the right fit for our team. I always felt like they cared about us and our success more than just completing the work.

Are there any areas for improvement or something The Gnar Company could have done differently?

I wish we would have spent more time in discovery and requirements mapping up front. Because we prioritized the upgrade to current software, then launched right into the enhancements, we ended up limiting some desired system functionality. Gnar did a great job of fulfilling our requirements, but we would have changed some of the requirements had I had a better up-front understanding of how the system and data were designed.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Senior Product Manager of (a/an) Consumer Products

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

24/7 health and fitness wearable that provides actionable insights and helps you live your best life.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire The Gnar Company to accomplish?

• Act as our API onboarding and support team, working with our customers to help them integrate with our API.
• Help build out our API documentation in an effort to make our API more self-serve.

SOLUTION

How did you find The Gnar Company?

Referral

Why did you select The Gnar Company over others?

• High ratings
• Close to my geographic location
• Pricing first our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

We hired Gnar to help us scale our API onboarding and support, which also reduced the load on our core engineering team to let them focus on building our product. Gnar was responsible for being the "first line of defense" and contacts for our API customers/partners: they built out and distributed API documentation, they had onboarding calls with developers, they managed shared Slack channels where they answered development questions, and they also provided feedback to our team on ways to improve our API offering.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Our engineering team spent a fraction of their time (from many hours per week down to < 1 hour per week) supporting API customers. Instead, we mostly interfaced with Gnar who gave us consolidated feedback & detailed bug reports.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Yes; Gnar was very punctual on all projects / workstreams. They were extremely responsive to emails and Slack messages from us and from our customers/partners.

What was your primary form of communication with The Gnar Company?

Virtual Meeting

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They balanced being professional, personable, available, amicable, and knowledgeable. This is a tough combination to do well, but they did.

Are there any areas for improvement or something The Gnar Company could have done differently?

Nothing comes to mind.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Global Solution Delivery Director of Onepak inc.

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Onepak provides IT reverse logistics services and a offers a reverse logistics platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire The Gnar Company to accomplish?

• Establish a new React based framework for our web apps
• Create a new front end portal in React JS
• Enhance our React Native mobile app
• Create a new Consumer facing web app

SOLUTION

How did you find The Gnar Company?

Online Search

Why did you select The Gnar Company over others?

• Close to my geographic location
• Great culture fit
• Referred to me

What was the size of The Gnar Company’s team?

6-10 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

• Create a web app React framework
• Create a new React JS portal
• Enhance a React Native mobile app
• Create a new customer facing web app

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Launch of the new React JS web app
• Launch of the new consumer web app
• Implementation and use of the enhancements to the mobile app

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

• Agile project management was managed by OnePak. The Gnar developers were all professional, agile proponents
• Their engagement created a hybrid model that worked as though they were part of the OnePak development team
• The team always responded positively and rapidly to requests and were proactive in their efforts to streamline delivery and processes.

What was your primary form of communication with The Gnar Company?

• In-Person Meeting
• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

• It was always easy to work with the company founders, who went out of their way to meet our needs
• Developers were specialists in our required fields and offered broad experience and expertise.

Are there any areas for improvement or something The Gnar Company could have done differently?

None

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Founder of Shepherdly

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Bug prediction for pull requests

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire The Gnar Company to accomplish?

• Build initial web application
• Design for website
• Design for logo

SOLUTION

How did you find The Gnar Company?

Other

Why did you select The Gnar Company over others?

• Good value for cost
• Other

What was the size of The Gnar Company’s team?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

• Web app: Build initial web application off figma designs. This involved implementing on top of an existing API. The application included search facets and data visualization.
• Website: Design a single page website from scratch, along with logo and other visualizations to showcase the product.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Completeness of agreed upon JIRA tickets

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

The team is proactive in their communication, giving updates daily in Slack. We also had a weekly zoom meeting to sync on the remaining issues. Items were delivered within a reasonable period of time.

What was your primary form of communication with The Gnar Company?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The quality of the code is well written and they were able to optimize for speed given my project requirements. The team also responds to pivots in priority very well and are willing to dig into problems with you to make sure the solution is right.

Are there any areas for improvement or something The Gnar Company could have done differently?

I think it could be beneficial to have tiered rates based on developer experience. This would allow clients to potentially optimize for cost vs speed/quality.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the COO of Gridly

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Gridly exists to accelerate the adoption of clean energy solutions for single family homeowners. With just the entry of an address we provide a bespoke plan to optimize the energy efficiency of a residence and convert all fossil fuel burning systems to clean, electric based equipment. Gridly demystifies the whole-home electrification process, doing all the upfront research and analysis for the homeowner and then connecting them with qualified installers to execute the Gridly Action Plan.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire The Gnar Company to accomplish?

• Assist with designing look and feel of the user interface
• Build the customer facing platform
• Manage the development effort

SOLUTION

How did you find The Gnar Company?

Referral

Why did you select The Gnar Company over others?

• High ratings
• Close to my geographic location
• Great culture fit

What was the size of The Gnar Company’s team?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Given a set of business objectives, the Gnar team collaborated with the business lead on defining the screen designs, functionality, user flows, and external integration needed to build our product. Through an iterative process a wireframe prototype of the product was built and refined. The product was then built, tested, validated by the business lead, and deployed.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• On-time delivery of bug-free code

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Gnar assigned strong PM resources to our project. Work was accurately estimated and completed within the timeframes planned.

What was your primary form of communication with The Gnar Company?

Virtual Meeting

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The quality of the work delivered was exceptional. The competencies of the engineers, with support from the Gnar management team, was very strong and they produced clean code consistent with the business' requirements.

Are there any areas for improvement or something The Gnar Company could have done differently?

We were pleased with all aspects of the relationship with Gnar.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the co-founder of a home inspection SaaS company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire The Gnar Company?

We needed an additional Ruby on Rails engineer to help accelerate the development of new features for our platform.

SOLUTION

How did you select this agency and what were the deciding factors?

I found them while searching for local development shops on Clutch!

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

The work was comprised of several self-contained mini-projects, including connecting our system to third-party services. I wrote up the requirements as JIRA tickets, and we took advantage of a visual designer from Gnar as well for one of the mini-projects. 

The engineer assigned to us was able to work through these tickets to build the features, and adapted easily as we changed things along the way.

Describe the recruitment process in detail.

I talked with Pete (the head of growth) and he matched me with an engineer that worked with us.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the engagement that demonstrate progress or success?

The work that was done is either already in production or undergoing beta testing. We've been happy with the results.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Their Ruby on Rails engineer was able to jump right into our productivity tools and go.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Our system is quite complicated, and Gnar was really able to be productive quickly without a lot of ramping up.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

At the beginning of the project, Gnar had more involvement in the code reviews that were happening. It tapered off towards the end, it was nice having another set of eyes on the work.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CEO of a Series B SaaS B2B Startup that sells IT/Endpoint Security Software.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire The Gnar Company?

Shortly after raising our Series B we needed to find qualified Rails devs to augment our existing team while we began our hiring process.

SOLUTION

How did you select this agency and what were the deciding factors?

The local Boston community and the folks I'm connected with know Mike and the other folks at Gnar. I've have many successful engagements with them and knew this one would also work well. They also have a knack for hiring folks that share similar culture values to Kolide employees.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

Project was a simple staff augmentation where a Gnar engineer is working on our core SaaS product, usually on things outside of the critical path.

Describe the recruitment process in detail.

I called up Mike, he was having a baby so I spoke instead with Pete who quickly got us matched with a suitable engineer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the engagement that demonstrate progress or success?

Yes Alex has helped us with various long-form projects like upgrading major dependencies that require changing hundreds of files across our code base, or helping us build out various aspects of our marketing website (like portions of our new blog system) and has been a major asset to other departments at Kolide looking for engineering support. I very rarely have to over-prescribe the work, Alex does a great job of listening to stakeholders which requires less work for me to best define a solution.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Working with Alex feels just like working with the engineers that work at Kolide. He is a treat.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They quickly knew exactly what they were looking for, and they've got us matched up with a perfect-fit engineer.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

None! We love working for Gnar and look forward to considering them for more specific projects beyond staff augmentation.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CEO of Katalyst, which is a Restaurant and Hospitality Point of Sale platform providing software and other technology to help restaurant operations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire The Gnar Company, and what were your goals?

We had a new product that we wanted to have built alongside internal development initiatives. Our goal was to get it completed in early May for a specific launch date. We needed very specific requirements as far as tech languages used, style of implementation, and native API implementation initiatives.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

Many factors including cost, location of resources, timezone limitations, and specific areas of execution

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

learn all designs and implementation initiatives, then created the infrastructure of the application. Iterated with new feature implementation and connected the product to the core API of our system to test in tandem while developing. Written in React and React Native while plugging into our core API to work in unison with the rest of our ecosystem of features and tech.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

4 people

• 2 developers
• 1 project manager
• collaboration with one of the co-founders to oversee the project

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Project was delivered on time and we were able to get the product implemented in a testing environment with relative ease of use.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

The communication and project management were very professional throughout the process and attention to detail was followed throughout the process.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They did a good job of jumping in and learning the in's and out's of the application quickly to begin building right away.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

not that I can think of.